Off Topic...

I know, I know, for me to post on anything other than ELA content or literature is unusual in the extreme - however.... As you may, or may not, know I LOVE ballet. Actually classical music, opera, and the ballet, but ballet in particular. Last night I watched Snow White, a ballet composed and conducted by Emilio Aragón, Spain's popular conductor-composer. The lead was danced by Tamara Rojo. The ballet premiered in 2005, the DVD was released in 2008. I am not a fan of modern dance in general, and I make no secret, or apology, for being an avid Russophile. I will watch virtually anything provided the lead dancers are Russian or the ballet is performed by the Bolshoi or Kirov (now Mariinsky). That being said, Snow White was magnificent. The music was achingly beautiful and the choreography by Ricardo Cué was very classical; not Petipa, but beautifully done. The story is so well known even children will have no trouble following the ballet. This DVD would be a great way to introduce young children to classical ballet. I can't wait for Maureen, my friend and former principal, to return from Florida so we can have another ballet night, at which Snow White will be the featured performance. If you enjoy ballet, or even if you don't, I highly recommend you check out this production of this classic fairy tale; then, of course, you can move on to the Russians. :)

Summer Vocabulary #1

For words to become part of our working vocabulary (the words we use in everyday conversation) we need to do more than just know what they mean. We have to use them. Here are a list of words often used in adult conversation, newscasts, literature, and other types of media. Make it your goal to listen for the use of these words this week and to use them all at least once in normal conversation. Feel free to post a comment and let me know how you do. Find a partner (parent, friend, sibling) and let's play...

tête-à-tête:  a private conversation, usually between two people, French, literally means head to head.

schadenfreude: satisfaction or pleasure found at someone else's misfortune, German, literally means (schaden - harm + freude - joy).

 

gravitas: seriousness or solemnity as of conduct or speech, from Latin word meaning heavy.

 

ascertain: to find out with certainty or assurance, to make certain or clear.

 

 

Ok, let's see how many of these words you can find, read, or hear this week, but more importantly how many of them can you use? Remember, to have a word become part of your working vocabulary, you have to actually use it - more than once. If you are unsure how the word is pronounced go to www.dictionary.com and use the pronunciation feature.

Partial Classroom Library Pictures from 2012-2013

Paradigm Shift Part II

After Fall Break, I explained to my Honors students and their parents that we were going to begin a new reading program. Students were going to be required to read 40 minutes every night, but they were going to be allowed to choose their own reading books, within certain limits which I set. They could choose books they owned, buy their own books, get them from the public or school library, or check them out from me. I had parents sign a “Classroom Library Permission Slip” stating their child could check out from my classroom library, clearly marking the level of books their child could check out, and agreeing that if their child lost or damaged a book from the classroom library the parents would pay to replace that book. I explained that we would be reading a whole class novel, but all other reading would be independently chosen by the students.

At the end of the school year, my Honors class had read 567 books, not including the whole class novel we read together. This averaged out to approximately 15 books per student. The AIMS reading scores for the Honors class went from 84% Meets and Exceeds to 90%. I was stunned by this increase because, other than the reading program, I had not done anything instructionally different than in previous years. The other classes’ AIMS scores were around 82%, which was in keeping with past years’ scores. I met again with my principal and agreed to try the program with all my classes the next year.

The next year I rolled out the program to all my classes and the results were beyond anything I could have imagined – and continue to surprise me every year. I keeping thinking the kids will plateau, but that has yet to happen. Here are the stats up to this point:

2009-2010 my seventh grade classes read 3265 books

2010-2011 my seventh grade classes read 3822 books

2011-2012 my seventh grade classes read 4341 books

2012-2013 my seventh grade classes read 3837 books, and so far in

2013-2014 my seventh grade classes have read 4788 books

Every year each student averages between 18-20 books each. And what books! They are not just reading the Percy Jackson series, Twilight, or Harry Potter. I have students reading the complete works of Poe, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, and believe it or not nonfiction and books of poetry – yes, your heard me right – POETRY! Mary Oliver, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, and William Wordsworth are yearly favorites.

My AIMS reading scores popped up above 90% and have never come down; they average between 94-97% Meets and Exceeds. I even had a year where 100% of my students Met and Exceeded. This school year (2013-2014) my district went from K-8 schools to building two new middle schools. The demographics I now serve are different from what I have served in the past and the number of students I teach has risen drastically. However, the program is still seeing success; students are reading – a lot! They are choosing their own books and finding they actually enjoy reading. I do not have this year’s AIMS scores, and while I expect them to be lower for several reasons (mainly related to opening a new school with kids who come from a K-8 environment and all the problems you would expect moving into a new building), I fully expect them to return to 90+ levels in 2014-2015.

          I can’t sing the praises of individual reading choice loudly enough. It is possible to get middle schooler’s to enjoy reading; yes, even those who didn’t come to you readers. I still teach whole class novels, but only those students need my help to comprehend fully – Dickens, Shakespeare, etc. I require students to read a minimum of thirty minutes every night, 40 for Accelerated classes, and once they get used to the idea, I find they often read much more. I have found parents love this program, and it has completely done away with complaints about books. Since parents have a say in what their students are reading, and I am not explicitly teaching titles they find questionable, complaints and requests for substitutionary titles have disappeared. Actually, I am often surprised by what parents allow their students to read when they know I’m not teaching the work in class. I’ve had many parents who read books with their kids.

          I have found that when I teach students to choose and talk about books the way adult readers do, and create an environment in which this is possible, they begin to respond as adult readers do. When I first came across Atwell’s books, there wasn’t much like them out there; recently this has changed. Donalyn Miller’s books: The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild, Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide, and other books are showing the amazing results that can be had when students have independent choice in their reading. My own results, and that of other teachers I work with who have adopted this approach to teaching reading, have sold me.

          So, this is the story of my own personal paradigm shift and how it occurred. I discovered if I treated students like the readers I wanted them to be, and showed them I wasn’t asking them to do anything I wasn’t doing myself, they responded like the habitual voracious readers I wanted them to become. We now have glorious conversations about books in my class, and most of the time I’m not included in them – the students talk to each other about the books they are reading and I sit back and smile. We had to start a book club at school to give students more opportunity to talk about their reading, as there just were not enough minutes in class, and attendance has grown every year. The book club is now attended not just by students and English teachers, but by teachers from all disciplines, the school counselor, and other administrative staff. Students have the opportunity to see that not just English teachers read, and to experience the way adult readers choose, discuss, and interact with books.

          I look forward every year to learning about great books from my students and sharing with them the great books I have discovered. If only 10% of them continue to read after they leave my class I will feel like I have succeeded. I still hear from former students who email me at school, come by, or contact me via my book blog to ask what they should read next, share with me a book I “must read”, tell me they are still reading, or ask if I’ve read thus-and-so book and if so, what did I think of it. This has been a strange and wonderful journey and I can’t wait for the next chapter.